Hannity Recasts Rumsfeld Into A Hero In The War On Terror

In case you weren’t dumbfounded enough when the Hannity show trotted out Donald Rumsfeld to lecture President Obama about truthfulness in national security, you might want to hold on to your jaw before watching any clips from last night’s hour-long infomercial for Rumsfeld's book that transformed the guy who resigned in disgrace over his handling of the war in Iraq in 2006 into a hero in the war on terror on Fox News in 2013. In fact, Sean Hannity was so busy lionizing Rumsfeld that he didn’t even discuss Iraq. When it did come up, via a guest, Rumsfeld was hailed for his behavior in the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal and held up as a role model for President Obama in Benghazi. Seriously.

Hannity’s suck-up slobbering at the beginning of the special signaled that no tough questions about Iraq (or anything else) would be forthcoming. But at about 4:50 in the first video below, he made it clear that no questions at all about Iraq would be asked. Instead, Rummy would be used (again) to attack President Obama. Hannity said, “We’ll get into Benghazi and we’ll get into Libya, we’ll get into the IRS in a few minutes with you.” Then, Hannity attacked President Obama for “refus(ing) to acknowledge a truth that Libya was a terror attack and tell the American people the truth. Or Fort Hood. ...(I)f, strategically, you make a decision that you can’t acknowledge the truth, you’re never going to be able to solve a problem.”

If you haven’t already keeled over from laughing at Hannity “forgetting” Rumsfeld’s own problems with the truth (assuring America that he "knew" where Saddam Hussein’s Weapons of Mass Destruction were and that the Iraq war probably wouldn’t last as long as six months. And then testifying that he had “never painted a rosy picture” about the war), then you might want to gird yourself for Rumsfeld’s equally amnesiac response: “Well, that’s true and we’re suffering from that today. There’s no question about it.”

Hannity kept up his effusing: “In politics, being a Defense Secretary, you were always planning for the uncertainty of life, right?” Which turned into an opportunity for Rumsfeld and Hannity to chuckle about the “unknown unknowns” before Rumsfeld stressed the importance of “get(ting) the facts out and put(ting) the facts out so that people know the truth about something. And if people grab arguments of convenience or put out a narrative that doesn’t prove out over time, they’re hurt, they’re badly damaged.” Was he thinking of how Republicans thought they would have done better in the 2006 midterms if his resignation had been accepted by President Bush when it was first tendered rather than waiting until after the election? Hannity, of course, didn't bring up such an inconvenient matter.

Instead, it was on to the “studio audience.” As usual, the group was really a selection of Hannity think-alikes there to give the false impression of a wider reach. The first question, from Daily Caller’s Michelle Fields – asking for Rumsfeld’s advice to President Obama – elicited this response from Rumsfeld on managing crises: "Climb, conserve and confess." He was referring to what he said he did when he was lost as a Navy pilot. As the audience erupted into appreciative laughter and Fields glowed with admiration on the split screen, Rumsfeld urged the Obama administration to “just full stop and find out what ground truth is and tell the American people what ground truth is.”

Later, came the most absurd question of them all, this one via Tony Sayegh of Talk Radio News. His effort to portray Benghazi as a far more serious scandal than Abu Ghraib should disqualify him from ever having the word “news” in the same sentence as his name again:

During the Bush administration, you took a lot of heat for the Abu Ghraib prison scandal where no Americans died. And you, though, offered – as we found out in interviews later – your resignation twice to the president. He didn’t accept them because you took accountability, which is an essential part of leadership. Here in Benghazi, four American heroes have died. Yet we see no one in this administration rising to the challenge of taking accountability for this. (In reality, Hillary Clinton did, but nobody bothered to correct the gush-fest). Is this, in your opinion, endemic of kind of bad leadership from the top in the Obama administration or are we going to find out after the fact that maybe someone did offer their resignation as a result of these actions and the lack of response to Benghazi?

Rumsfeld said that “only time will tell” about a resignation. Then he said:

To hear a Secretary of State make the comment "What,at this point, does it matter?" was heartbreaking. It does matter. It matters that people are dead. It also matters that we find out precisely what took place.” …But there is something that’s useful about accountability.

Of course, Clinton's comment about what matters was referring to "questions" about whether or not the attack on the Benghazi compound was the result of a protest or not. She was not suggesting that the attack didn't matter or finding out what happened didn't matter. But yeah, accountability is a great thing if you’re a Republican on the Hannity show. Because you can count on it only being applied to Democrats.

Hannutty is Murdock’s mouth piece, as is O’Reilly, Krystal, Beck and a host of other corporate whores that make big bucks spouting the same misinformation year after year. Obama and company haven’t been too impressive either, allowing continuations of what occurred in the last forty years that a bribed Congress has sanctified. Candidates will forever tow the line when it suits those really in power and America will continue to be at the whim of the minority where power and wealth matter more than country.

That there is an over-population of pathetically ignorant Americans allowing Fox to justify it’s existence by obviously gross exploitation use to cause me a great deal of embarassment knowing this specific element of contemporary American society exist, but now same has frightened me into believing that a day will come when a deserved response more radical than that of a passive posting on a political blog will have to be delivered in defense of everything America has attempted to respresent for the last 240 years.

Hubris, incompetence, arrogance and a closed circle of fanatics allowed everything to go wrong after 9/11. Non-accountability and anti-conservative values will forever be the stain left by GW’s circus administration and spun by FOX to be anything but the truth of any of it anytime it airs. That so many people eagerly lap up the lies used to be disturbing to me, but then again look at how many Germans cheered and died for Hitler until Germany was destroyed. Fools will forever be with us voting for people like GW and Romney and hating anything FOX tells them to hate, ridicule and hold in disdain.